


Hello? Hello?

by Innwich



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Human, Animatronics, Diners, Fast Food, Guards, Happy halloween, Horror, Late at Night, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2513534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean worked the night shift at a pizzeria as a security guard. Sure, the animatronic mascots moved around the place on their own at night, but the previous guard had left instructions for Dean. What could go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

** 1st Night **

“Dude, guess what?”

“What?” Sam said, looking up from his homework.

“I got a new job at a pizza joint.” Dean said.

“When are you not thinking about food?” Sam said.

“Until the day I die.” Dean grinned. “You don’t appreciate the finer things in life, Sammy.”

“So which pizza joint is it?”

“Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.”

“That place is lame, Dean,” Sam groaned.

“Hey, I don’t care as long as they pay me, man,” Dean said, picking up his car keys from the kitchen table. “Don’t wait up.”

Dean still remembered going to fast food joints that had animatronics that sang and played music when they were all the rage back when he was a kid. Kids at school used to have lunchboxes and backpacks that had pictures of the mascots printed on them.

These days, Dean didn’t know what kids these days even wanted to see these piece of crap robots. These things were lame. Sam wasn’t too impressed the last time Dean tried to take him to one of those joints.

Dean didn’t get a uniform. It wasn’t like anyone would see him.

The manager had given him a set of keys, a flashlight, and a word of advice, “We’re on a power budget, so don’t be surprised if there is a power outage.”

Dean unlocked the front door, and locked it after himself.

To his right, was a show stage where he could just see the outlines of the pizzeria’s mascots sitting up there, facing the dining area he was standing in right now. He switched on the flashlight and made his way to the back of the dark pizzeria, where the security guard’s office was.

“What a dump.”

The office was stuffy, and the light was dim, but Dean could still see the cobwebs under the desk. The office sucked worse than the motel room that he and Sam were staying at.

Dean sat in the only chair in the office. It was worn and lumpy. He could almost feel the springs pressing up against his butt.

It wasn’t gonna be a fun night.

Dean switched on the monitor. The surveillance video feeds were grainy. It wasn’t high resolution. Then again, it wasn’t like the pizzeria needed anything better than the basic surveillance cameras. Dean couldn’t imagine why anyone would try to break into the pizzeria. Stale pizzas couldn’t worth that much.

There were two doorways in the office, one on the left wall and one on the right wall, each leading to a different hallway. Dean pressed a button on the wall next to a door. The door closed down with a loud slam. It was a heavy-duty metal door that could probably crush a foot if someone was standing under it. Why would the office of a kid pizza joint need reinforced doors?

“Weird.”

Dean watched the video feeds from the rooms in the pizzeria. The camera in the kitchen wasn’t working, but the others were working fine.

One of the cameras gave him a closer look at the show stage. Three of the pizzeria’s mascots were sitting on the stage. They were larger than a human, like those mascot costumes that people put on at a Disneyland park. Unlike the ones at a Disneyland park, these mascots were fitted with robotic endoskeletons underneath the fake furry skin, so they could dance and sing for the customers.

Right now, after hours, the mascots were just staring out at the empty tables and seats sitting in front of them in the dark.

“Because that’s not creepy at all,” Dean said.

The phone rang.

Dean jumped a little. He wasn’t expecting a call at the dead of night.

He picked up the handset. It was one of those cordless phones. There were buttons on the phone and the answer machine. Who put buttons on a handset? Dean looked at the handset dubiously, and pressed the green button on it. “Hello? Hey?”

The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.

Dean tried to press a few random buttons on the phone, before the answering machine finally took the call.

“Hello? Hello? I don’t- I don’t understand how this works,” a guy said on the loudspeaker. “Is it recording?”

Dean tried to press the answer button again. “Hey, can you hear me?”

“I don’t know if it’s working,” the guy muttered on the other end of the line.

Seriously, how could the guy not know how to record a message? Dean might not be the most up to date when it came to technology, but even he knew how to left a message on the phone.

“I’m told that it is recording,” the guy said doubtfully.

“Well, you’re told right,” Dean said.

“I am Castiel Novak. This is my last week working at the office. I thought I should leave you a message, to help you with your first night at Freddy’s.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at that. He didn’t think he would need any help with his job. The job description was pretty simple: Sat at the office and checked the video feeds until the end of his shift.

“There are five animatronics. If they see you, they’ll try to put you into one of the animatronic suits. The insides of suits are filled with wirings, crossbeams and robotic devices,” Cas said. “Don’t let them find you and put you in the suits. It’ll be… unpleasant, and fatal.”

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Dean said, but Cas kept talking.

“The animatronics are locked up during the day, because of what happened in 1987. The restaurant let them roam during the night, to keep them from rusting,” Cas said. “Don’t leave the office, and don’t let the power run out.”

“That doesn’t ominous,” Dean said.

“How do I end the recording?” Cas muttered and mashed the buttons, before he figured out he had to hang up the phone.

The office fell almost silent again, except for the whirring of the fan.

“Right.” Dean wasn’t sure if he should take it seriously or not. It could be a prank. Maybe it was the guys on the dayshift trying to play a prank on him? But Cas on the phone didn’t sound like one of those punk kids that did prank calls in the dead of night. He actually sounded pretty serious about it.

Just in case, Dean looked at the monitor. Everything seemed fine. No one was trying to break in. The stupid mascots were there. He only saw three of them on the stage. A chicken, a bear, and a rabbit.

There were three mascots, not five like Cas had said.

Dean looked at the feeds from the other rooms, but he couldn’t the other two mascots. Anyhow, he was in no rush to meet the rest if they were all as creepy as these three.

Dean switched back to the feeds from the show stage, and his heart skipped a beat.

One of the mascots had left the stage. The rabbit mascot was gone. Okay, Cas did say these things would move at night. “I guess he wasn’t kidding about that.”

The rabbit was in the dining area, standing behind rows of table. The tables were covered in nice tablecloths, and there were party hats put neatly in front each of the seats.

Dean squinted at the monitor.

How did those mascots move? Dean couldn’t see a cable on the rabbit. It must be powered in some other way.

Dean kept an eye on the rabbit, but it wasn’t moving.

After a while, Dean switched to the video feeds of other rooms. He rubbed his eyes after checking every camera once. It was tiring his eyes out.

Dean checked the video feeds again.

The bunny was moving closer to the office. According to the video feeds, it was in the hallway outside the office.

Dean jumped when he looked up from the monitor

“Son of a bitch,” he said. The rabbit was just standing right outside the door, leering at him with its big goofy grin. Its blunt teeth glinted under the lights.

Dean slammed the metal door shut.

He didn’t scare easy. He wasn’t a twitchy or anxious guy.

He wasn’t scared of clowns like Sammy was. The only thing he was scared of was heights, and that didn’t even count. He could do a marathon of slasher movies on his own without breaking a sweat. He laughed in the faces of Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, when other people at the cinema were screaming their heads off.

Maybe Cas’s message had made Dean paranoid, but there was something unsettling about seven feet of pure machinery that was dressed up in a fluffy costume, grinning at him with its unblinking eyes and large teeth.


	2. Chapter 2

** 2nd Night **

Dean left a note about the rabbit mascot trying to get into the office. Maybe they would do something about keeping the mascots out of his sight. He didn’t really care if they roamed the rest of the restaurant, as long as they stayed the hell away from him.

Once Dean got back to the motel room and sent Sam to school, he looked up Cas in the phone book. The guy wasn’t listed.

Dean woke up the next night with dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t sleep so well. He was pumped full of adrenaline. He woke up every half an hour, feeling like something could just walk up to his door and stare at him while he slept in his room.

“You look tired, Dean,” Sam said, watching Dean microwave a late dinner before heading to Freddy’s.

“I had a bad night. I’ll be fine,” Dean said. “Keep the windows and door locked while I’m gone.”

“You sound like Dad,” Sam huffed.

“That’s because he’s right,” Dean said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Of course you’d say that.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Sam said. “I’ll lock the door and windows. Stop worrying.”

Dean took his seat in the office by the time the clock struck twelve. The three mascots were sitting on the show stage, far away from the office. Good. He just hoped they stayed that way.

The phone rang.

Dean tried to answer the call. Like last night, the phone wouldn’t let him pick up the call. After a few rings, Cas started speaking on the loudspeaker.

“Hello? Hello? Is it recording? This is very frustrating,” Cas said. He sounded like he was trying to figure out the string theory instead of a friggin’ voice mail.

Dean could almost hear the poor guy frowning at the phone. He had to laugh, though the Cas couldn’t hear him. “Hit me with it, Cas.”

“I’m glad you’re still here,” Cas said. “This is not an easy job.”

“You’ve got that right,” Dean said.

“You must have used the doors last night. I should warn you that the doors have electromagnetic locks. The door will open when they lose power. It is so that people will not get locked in during a power outage. It is bad for us,” Cas said. “I cannot stress how important it is that you conserve power.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said dubiously. He didn’t have much of a problem with the power last night. But he could see why Cas would be worried about it, if the doors couldn’t be closed when they ran out of power.

Yeah, Dean didn’t want to even think about it.

“Check Pirate Cove. It’s where one of the animatronics hides. He doesn’t like to be watched,” Cas said. “He’ll attack if he realizes you’re not watching.”

Dean switched on the monitor, and looked for Pirate Cove. He had to flick through all the feeds before he found the room that Cas was talking about.

Pirate Cove didn’t look so sinister, despite its name. It was a room with a small round stage, around which the curtains were drawn. A small sign in front of the curtain read, ‘Sorry! Out of Order!’

Dean wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was hiding behind those curtains.

“But remember: Everything uses up power. You use up power when you watch the video feeds. You use up power when you keep the doors locked.” Cas said, before hanging up, “Only close the doors if you have to. Be careful.”

Dean checked the video feed coming from the show stage.

Two of the mascots were gone. The chicken and the rabbit were gone. The only mascot left on the stage was the bear, and it was staring into the camera, like it could see right at Dean.

“That’s disturbing.”

Dean checked Pirate Cove, like Cas told him to. Something was glowing in the dark behind the curtains. It was two spots of light. Like two eyes staring at the camera. That had to be the mascot that Cas was talking about.

Yeah. A fourth mascot was coming out.

The rabbit was in a back room, standing next to some spare heads of the mascots, grinning at the camera.

“Fuck you,” Dean said, before switching to another video feed.

The chicken mascot was standing in the east hallway outside the office.

Cas said not to close the doors if he didn’t have to. Apparently it wasted power. Dean waited for the chicken to come closer before he did anything. He scrolled through the other video feeds.

“You fucking son of a bitch,” Dean swore. The mascot in Pirate Cove was a fox. It was frozen in a pose, standing right in front of the curtain. It had a hook for a hand.

Dean checked the west hallway outside the office, the one not occupied by the chicken. He could just barely catch the fox running down the hallway to the office, before he pressed the button to close the door hard. Something that was the size of that mascot shouldn’t be able to move that fast.

The door slammed down. As soon as it was shut, the fox mascot started banging on the door. It sounded like metal banging against metal. The mascot was hitting the door with its hook. Every hit shook the floor. Dean could feel the desk shaking. The metallic sounds echoed sharply inside the office.

The lights flickered. The hits were zapping the power.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dean said.

Dean looked at the door that opened to the east hallway.

The chicken mascot was peering through the glass window next to the door. It was almost like it was looking at him.

“Fuck this shit,” Dean said, and pushed the button to close the door. The banging on the other door stopped, but Dean kept the door locked, just in case.

Dean could hear something rustling outside the door, where the chicken was. The chicken was breathing raggedly, making moans that sounded way too human. He didn’t look at the video feed. He didn’t need to see the thing staring at him through the camera.

By the time his shift ended, the mascots had gone back to the show stage, right where they had been sitting at the start of his shift.


	3. Chapter 3

** 3rd Night **

Dean set the alarm to wake himself early next afternoon.

He was alone in the motel room when he woke up. Sam had already gone to school.

Dean grabbed a burger at the diner next to the motel, and went to the library to use the computers.

Last night, Dean had listened to Cas’s messages stored on the answering machine again, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything. One line had stood out to him: _“The animatronics are locked up during the day, because of what happened in 1987.”_

Dean typed in, ‘Freddy Frazbear’s Pizza 1987’.

Dean found a short article about Freddy’s in 1987. The article was vague. Someone was released from the hospital after being bitten by an animatronic mascot. The pizzeria manager claimed that the mascot had faulty wirings. There was nothing else on the story. It was from a while ago, so maybe that was why there wasn’t much information about it on the Internet.

Instead, Dean typed in, ‘Freddy Frazbear’s Pizza’.

That got him the webpage of the pizzeria, where he found the menu and some ads about their newest meal deals.

Dean clicked on the other search results.

One of the links took him to a sensational news story. Apparently, some kids went missing a few years ago at Freddy’s, after they were lured into a back room by a guy dressed in a mascot costume. The guy was caught, but the kids were never found.

In some related articles, people reported smelling foul odors coming from the mascots, and seeing blood and mucus around the eyes and mouths of the mascots.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Dean said. The old man using the computer next to him glared at him.

As a force of habit, Dean switched off the computer as soon as he was done.

The papers made it sound like the bodies of the kids were stuffed into the mascots and were never found. Dean wished he hadn’t known. Those things were creepy enough on their own. He didn’t need to know some kids were stuffed in those suits. He didn’t need to know why some of the mascots sounded like they were wheezing when they were standing outside his doors.

What had happened happened. It stayed in the past.

Dean needed the money.

“The things I do for you, Sammy,” Dean said.

That evening, Dean went to office from the front door, and he passed by the show stage where the mascots were sitting without looking up at them. He didn’t want to think about dead kids. He didn’t want to make eye contact with those things without two reinforced doors and a dozen of cameras between him and them.

Once Dean settled in the office, sitting in the chair, he pulled out a bottle of jack from the paper bag that he brought into the family pizzeria with him. He even brought his own shot glass.

Yeah, sued him, but he needed something to numb his nerves if he had to keep doing this.

Dean was drinking his first glass when the phone rang. He didn’t even try to pick up the call this time.

“Hello? Hello?” Cas said on the answering machine.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said.

He was actually looking forward to hearing from Cas. The dude might be a nerd that couldn’t leave a voice mail without acting like he’d never used a phone before, but no matter how shitty the rest of the night would get, Dean could always count on Cas giving him some good advice on how to survive.

It would be awesome if Dean could meet him. Cas sure had a nice voice; it was deep and calm, soothing on lonely nights in the dark, maybe on nights when Sam had a sleepover at some friends’ house.

Dean should probably stop that train of thoughts before it crashed into a bunch of animatronic mascots from Hell.

“You make it to the third night,” Cas said. “It’s good to know you’re still there.”

“You too,” Dean mumbled with a mouthful of whiskey.

“The mascots will be more active later in the week,” Cas said. “You have to conserve power. I’ve learnt that you cannot keep an eye on all of them. Conserve power and be careful.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I wish circumstances are different,” Cas said after a pause. “I wish we could’ve met under better circumstances. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wish you could hear me, man,” Dean said, as Cas hung up on him.

The three mascots had left the show stage. It was the first night Dean saw the bear mascot left the stage.

He didn’t need this shit.

Going through the video feeds, Dean spotted the bear in the restrooms, the chicken in the dining area, and the rabbit in the back room.

The fox was peeking out from behind the curtains.

Okay. None of them was near the office yet.

But Dean heard a mechanical tune starting to play somewhere outside the office. It was like something that would come out of a musical box. Feeling paranoid, Dean checked the video feeds again. He saw three of the mascots, but he couldn’t find the bear anywhere. Either it was hiding in the kitchen, where the camera was broken, or it was hiding out of sight somewhere.

Dean shut the two doors, just in case, before going back to the video feeds.

“Wait.” Dean looked closer at the monitor.

It was weird.

The poster on the wall looked different. He squinted at the monitor. Something was different about the poster that used to have a bear on it. He’d watched these video feeds so often, he could memorize the placement of everything in the frames. There was something off about the poster, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

Dean looked away from the monitor. He scrambled out of his chair and yelled, “Fucking fuck!”

There was a fucking life-sized mascot sitting slumped on the floor right in front of him. It looked like the bear mascot, but its fur wasn’t brown like that other one. Its fur was pale; it was more yellow than brown. It was limp, like the robotic skeleton inside it was gone.

There was no way it could’ve gotten into the office. Both of the doors were locked.

Dean glanced at the monitor, trying to see if any mascot were near the door, if he could open the doors and run. Fuck everything.

The hallways were clear. He could still run, if he could get to one of the doors.

Dean raised the monitor above his head, ready to bash it on the yellow bear mascot in the office if it came anywhere near him.

“What the fuck? Where are you?”

The yellow bear was gone, but the doors were still locked. It was impossible. There was no way it could get in or out.

Dean let out a breath shakily, which sounded loud in the room.

Maybe drinking on the job wasn’t such a good idea.

He was seeing things. His head was messing with him.

But Cas said-

“Five mascots. Right,” Dean said. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair. There was the chicken, the rabbit, the fox, the bear, and the yellow bear. Five mascots. “Good to know. I’m not going crazy. I’m talking to myself.”

So Cas had seen this before, even the weird teleporting yellow bear. Cas knew what to do.

If this week was gonna get any worse, he really needed to talk to Cas.


	4. Chapter 4

** 4th Night **

Dean went to Freddy’s half an hour before his shift started.

He picked the lock on the cabinet in the back room, where they kept the personal information of their employees. A filled form, with Dean’s photo stapled on it at the corner, lay on the very top of the small pile of paper.

The next few pages were the contact information of some kids that worked at the counters or in the kitchen during the day. He found what he was looking for about a dozen pages later.

Castiel Novak. Security guard.

Like the others, Cas had a photo stapled to his information sheet. Cas was a solemn guy, staring out of the photo with blue eyes, dark hair, and a strong jaw covered with stubbles like he hadn’t shaved that morning.

At least Dean could put a face to the name and voice now.

Dean keyed in the number from Cas’s contact info into his cell, and called the number. He wasn’t being a creep or a stalker. This was an emergency. Dean listened to the dial tone. No one answered. After a few more rings, the answering machine greeted him with the default message, “Hi, please leave a message after the tone.”

Of course he got the damned answering machine. Dean tried not to put his hand through a wall.

He cleared his throat. “Hey, this is Dean. I’m the new night guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. I got your voice mails, but I have some questions about the mascots. Can you call me back on my cell? I really need to talk to you. Thanks.”

With a heavy heart, Dean trudged back to the security guard’s office. He was early, but there was no point making his way out of the pizzeria before coming back in again. He didn’t want to walk through the creepy hallways in the dark again, knowing those mascots could be out there waiting for him.

The phone in the office rang. Dean grabbed it. Maybe Cas was calling him back.

“Hello? Hello?” Cas said.

“Cas?” Dean said. “Can you hear me?”

“You’re on the fourth night. I don’t know anyone who lasts that long.”

Dean threw the handset to the floor. Cas’s voice kept coming out of the loudspeaker on the answering machine.

It was a voice mail.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said.

“This may be the last time I can talk to you,” Cas said. He actually sounded nervous.

The first banging in the background of the recording nearly made Dean jump out of his skin. Dean had to look up from the telephone just to make sure it wasn’t one of the mascots hammering on his doors.

His doors weren’t closed. There was no mascot anywhere near the office.

“What is that?” Dean said.

“I won’t able to make any more recordings,” Cas said. There was a particularly loud vicious bang. It was from Cas’s end of the line. “They’re very agitated tonight. I don’t have enough power to last the night.”

“Get out of there, Cas,” Dean said. “Fuck!”

It was like watching a horror movie and seeing the serial killer standing right behind a chick. No matter how hard he yelled at the recording, he couldn’t stop what was happening. This was a thousand times worse because Cas had been real and living. This was worse because Cas had been sitting in the office that Dean was using now. This was worse because maybe Dean wasn’t listening to something that was happening right now. Maybe this had happened a long time before the message reached Dean.

“Perhaps you should check inside the suits,” Cas said. “I think they-”

The banging on the recording wouldn’t stop.

A familiar tinkling musical box tune started to play. It was the music from one of the mascots.

“No,” Cas said.

The message ended with a loud robotic screech.

“Shit,” Dean said, staring at the phone. “Fuck. This is not happening.”

Feeling numb, Dean switched on the monitor. It was all muscle memory now.

The mascots were on the move. The rabbit and the chicken were easier to deal with. They stayed longer in the hallways before they reached the hallway. What Dean had to look out for was the fox that would run down the hallway.

Dean watched the Pirate Cove as often as he dared, without using up too much the power. Just enough to stop the fox from coming out from behind the curtains too soon.

 _“Check Pirate Cove. He doesn’t like to be watched.”_ That was what Cas had said.

Dean didn’t want to think about what had happened to Cas.

He didn’t even understand what had happened.

Had Cas recorded his messages for Dean before he died, the week before Dean started working here? How did a new message end up in the answering machine every night? Dean had thought Cas was still out there, finally gotten away from going through this crazy shit every night.

Fuck. What was Dean gonna do?

Dean could hear something laughing down the hallway outside the office.

He switched on the monitor. It was the bear, standing in a dark corner in the east hallway.

Dean locked the door.

The fox was standing outside the curtain in Pirate Cove. It looked like it was gonna charge the office any second now. The only thing stopping it was the rabbit, which was edging towards the office in the west hallway. It was not standing right outside the door, but it was too close for comfort.

Dean locked the other door too.

“Why the hell not?” Dean yelled. “Everyone comes and take a pot shot at the new guy.”

Dean could swear he heard something rustling and gurgling outside his doors.

Mascots were waiting outside of his doors. He had to keep both doors locked. This was bad. He couldn’t keep doing this for long. By keeping two doors shut, he was draining the power fast.

He didn’t want to know what would happen if he ran out of power.

Cas had run out of power.

Dean checked the video feeds quickly. The rabbit had moved away from the office.

Good.

And with that stunt, Dean had used up the last bit of the power.

The only light in the office went out. The fan stopped spinning.

The doors open.

Dean silently cursed whoever it was that thought it was a good idea to put the pizzeria on a power budget at night.

The musical box tune from Cas’s recording was moving closer than ever in the dark.

One of them was coming.

Fuck.

Dean didn’t move. He hoped these things were like the T-Rexes in the Jurassic Park movies. He hoped they wouldn’t see him if he didn’t fucking move. These mascots were not real living things. They were robots. They had motion sensors for eyes. They wouldn’t see him in the dark if he didn’t fucking move.

Dean could hear his heart hammer wildly in his chest.

Eventually, the musical box tune faded away.

The doorways were empty.

Dean looked down at his watch. It was six o’clock in the morning.

It was the end of his shift.

The mascots had gone back to the show stage.


	5. Chapter 5

** 5th Night **

Dean didn’t know what he should do about the recordings that Cas had left him. He wasn’t so sure the manager wouldn’t delete them as soon as he told the cops, but he had to do something.

What was more, the pizzeria still hadn’t paid Dean yet. They paid at the end of the week, which meant Dean was getting his paycheck tonight. He couldn’t piss them off until he got his paycheck.

It was only one night.

He’d call the cops tomorrow, after he got his paycheck.

“I’m quitting, Sam,” Dean said. “This is the last night I’m doing this.”

“Why?” Sam said.

“Something is wrong with that place,” Dean said.

“What’s going on, Dean?” Sam frowned, because he was a smart kid, and he knew Dean better than Dean knew himself.

“I’ll talk to you about it later,” Dean said. He wasn’t so sure Sam wouldn’t go running to the cops after he told Sam what had happened. He didn’t want Sam or anyone else anywhere near the pizzeria at night. “Just go to bed, okay?”

“It’s not even school night,” Sam said unhappily.

“I know,” Dean said. “But some of us still have to go to work. Just… stay safe. I’ll be back.”

He had a close call last night. He couldn’t go so close to losing power if he wanted to survive.

Dean tried to switch off the fan to reduce power usage, but there was no power switch on it. The wire was nestled in a bunch of other wires at the wall. Dean didn’t’ want to risk cutting one of the wires of the cameras.

There was no voice mail from Cas tonight. To be honest, Dean hadn’t expected any calls from Cas. Dean had never been much of an optimist.

He tried not to think too hard on it or what it meant. He kept the mascots at bay by shutting the doors when he needed to, and checking the video feeds to make sure none of them was getting too close.

Sometime later in the night, the phone rang.

Dean picked up the phone and pressed the answer button. Tonight, the phone let him pick up the call.

There was the sound of someone breathing on the other side of the line.

It was making Dean’s skin crawl. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He was paranoid enough from the mascots creeping on him. He didn’t need someone prank-calling him on his last night at Freddy’s. Keeping an eye on the video feeds, Dean said sharply, “Who is this and what the fuck do you want?”

“Dean.”

Dean nearly dropped the phone. It was impossible, but it sounded like- “Cas?”

“You’re on your fifth night and you’re still here.”

“I thought you were dead,” Dean said. “What happened?”

“The inevitable.”

“Dammit, Cas. What happened? What was that recording you left me last night?”

Cas took a long moment to think. “Do you mean my last recording?”

“Yeah. What do you think I mean?”

After checking the video feeds, Dean reopened a door. The fox had been gone for a while. Dean shouldn’t have kept the door shut for the last five minutes. It was power he wouldn’t get back.

Dean looked up just in time to see one of the mascots standing outside the other door. He pressed the button to close the door, heart thumping, not wanting to think about what would happen if he didn’t see it in time and let it slip into the office.

It was a dangerous game, monitoring the movements of the mascots while talking to Cas on the phone. Dean was spending too much time watching the video feeds, leaving the doors shut for too long, wasting too much precious power, because he was distracted by Cas.

“I told you to look inside the suits,” Cas said.

“I know. I heard you last night.”

“You didn’t look inside the suits,” Cas said. He was talking in that deep rough voice that Dean had heard on the phone so many nights before, but he was breathing heavily. His words were raspy and muffled. It was like he was talking through a mask or something.

Suddenly, Dean was more scared than he’d ever been in his life. “What?”

“I didn’t die right away, Dean, but I couldn’t get out either,” Cas said. “I was trapped inside this body, alive, while it moved on its own every night. You let me die.”

“I didn’t know,” Dean said weakly. “You left that message before I started working, Cas. I couldn’t have saved you.”

“You could’ve saved me,” Cas said. “You should have looked for me.”

“I did look for you,” Dean said.

“No, you left me behind, Dean,” Cas said. “I wasn’t dead when I watched you leave through the front door after your shifts. You left me behind.”

Dean couldn’t help the shivers that ran down his spine. He tightened his grip on the phone. “You watched me?”

“I watched you pass by the show stage every day. You never looked at me,” Cas said. “Do you know there is a ghost of a murdered child inside this body with me? This body is haunted.”

Dean was surprised he could keep talking with the cold sweat dripping down his back. “I don’t know that.”

“I’m trapped inside this vessel, Dean. It’s your fault that I can’t leave it,” Cas said.

“It’s not my fault.”

“It is.”

The rotating blades in the fan stuttered.

“Shit,” Dean said.

The lights flickered.

The pizzeria was running out of power.

“I’ve told you to conserve power, Dean. You shouldn’t have kept talking to me on the phone.”

Dean slammed down the phone.

He switched off the monitor. He couldn’t afford using power to watch the video feeds anymore. He needed the power to keep the doors locked, for as long he could hold out until his shift ended.

All of the lights in the office were shut off.

The doors opened with a loud groan.

The musical box tune was coming from right outside the office.

Dean slowly turned around to face the mascot.

Dead blue eyes stared at him from behind the eye holes of the mask. Dried blood was leaking out of them.

“Hello, Dean.”


End file.
